Nicolas Born was an unusual and independent German poet novelist etc. of the 60's and 70's (died miserably in 1979 of lung & brain cancer) who came to the US (Iowa Workshop when Berrigan and Hollo were there), and though a darker and more engaged person by far took some vital lessons from NY School poets that showed in his third book (which these poems came from) Das Auge des Entdeckers (The Discoverer's Eye), which sold big (for poetry) and made him famous in 1972. Later he translated Kenneth Koch (Vielen Dank, 1976). He hated the German marxist poetic orthodoxy of HM Enzensberger etc, and developed what he called a utopian poetics. A collected poems and selected letters in the last few years have made him famous again. He was a good guy who at the end had really cruel luck.

I met and started translating him in 1969; published work from the first two books in big (Iowa Review, Modern Poetry in Translation) and little (Kamadhenu, Doones) journals back then; got back to it when I was contacted by the family about letters for the selected letters. I'm working with the cooperation of his widow Irmgard and daughter Katharina.

Landscape With Big Car

With such a big car we’re bound to come through dead or alivein the back of the neck a music that never stopssweet air of Montana bitter air of Missouriour coats billow out like we’re on the runwe fill up there are dog catchers running around loose us in the sidelong looks of cowboysus in the spendthrift shade of an airplane us outside Chicago’s field of fire we shake hands with William Fulbright we haunt our way through Arkansaswe visit a poet’s grave in his lifetimegreen all around with just a touch of yellow the demonstration runs into the flames of PhoenixArizona redbrown outer space blackwe’re a point moving westwardswe’re not Americans but we’re part of it too a sheriff pulls us overno we didn’t pick up a black hitchhikerwe’re not horse thieves but we are Germans our politeness is the politeness of foreigners we’re getting faster we feel like we’re roaring packed in sweet airand in a music that never stops we’re aging really slowlythank you Pentagonfor this statistical delaying effect

Before Falling Asleep

Under the covers three a.m. I want to be off to the BETTER WORLDthis is the wall I have to go intoto close off my face and put the world behind me in my own personal pastThe curtain’s blowing it’s September--how silly these facts are like the speech-spit in the roomthat dripsinto my memory “according to reliable sources”*I’m already far away from myself but I still feel me lying here the one hand minelongingly around my balls the other mineat my ear the insertion point into meHere I am voicebones in the wall I am you and sleeping

*This is about the voice of a news announcer that makes it hard to sleep, which was supposed to be clearer at first, and also about the observation that we’re glad to turn away from the world and toward the wall when going to sleep, while when waking we like to have the wall covering our backs and life in front of us, to get a view of it all. [Born’s note, part of the poem—ET]

Parting for Life and Parting for Death

How dead serious this coming and goingup ladders stairways when someone turns away and actually leaves with just a word how empty the street is thenhow left the one left ishow breathless and scared I followthe flight and the chase over rooftopsbeyond all feeling and how I admire from a distance people who part with a jokeand hug each other, terrifiedyet then goodbye is just a handa tear on the platforma spot of oil in the parking lotand there really are people who go on livingsomewhere elseand people of no returngoodbyes like rumpled beds and goodbyes like forgotten toothbrushes goodbyes out into the airgoodbyes for traveland your soft goodbye to meand my hoarse goodbye to you. But a wave from the train stationis neither soft nor hoarseand hearty handshakes meanlonger travels.Everything behind your eyes is foreign to mebecause you’re a Colombian (but that’s not the reason).I give my father this handno one wants to tell him any morehe’s the spitting image of me(I’m telling him here)you hear me father!where are your strong armshave they grown far away from youor have you just forgotten them in allthe resumes you had to write? Goodbye!And goodbye Uncle Heinrichbrother of my fatherwho was always just getting right upfrom his crowded brown deskgoodbye old willow out my window in 1960about which I made my first poembecause it brushed wearily on the windowpaneand always reminded me of something . . .Here I get dizzy because I’m almost alone alreadywith this pencil that’s gone crazyI stole it at Luchterhandsto get back at Roehlerwho said my poem was larmoyant.Poor dear Roehleryou can’t even be larmoyant goodbye then until the next penciland goodbye to Piwitt in Rome who’s burying the wrung dry geniuses of sacred paintingone more time and Buch who is one of the few you canlend money to and to whombeing overweight is no big deal goodbye Mother in the years after the war who with her good hands switched pricetagsgoodbye Günter Grass who works like a dogbut otherwise doesn’t really do much (maybe he has to because we all want it that way)goodbye first wifegood morning second wifegoodbye old poet in mealways making pronouncements likeONLY SOCIALISM WILL BRING INDIVIDUALITYwhich would be kind of late for my legs which can’t break out of this trotgoodbye Anna Karin Marianne GiselaBarbara Margret Petergoodbyes are still dead seriousand it’s still not certain that goodbyesare needed at all it would be nicer to just go awayand just come backand I would be happy if when seen again this poemfrom the middle on maybewould be a little bit cheerfulwhich in fact it even is.

On the Inside of Poems

You can't make a living competing with realityyou can't live on reality eitheryou can survive an operation and get everything back and go on through Life through quickly fading pictures that was you you and the One in the OvenPersons panting under their tombstones-- With unspeakable exertion by you and all your ancestors you shield yourself Land and water remainthe sky remainsand you remainyou have nothing to get ready forlittle suns light your democracy Andyou choose life and deathyou have many Beautiful Voicesyou are many your skin is your skin And finally nothing but skinyou're the entrepreneur of Life impresario of white apparitions you're the Spaceman out in the universe the author of the course of historyyou can print time like booksyou dice and sieve and love And the ruins of dictating machines are blowing in the windunreason is in full bloomyou're the bloom and the unreasonyou're day and night in the day and at nightyou're the killer circling through your own veinsyou're father and sonyou're the slaughtered Indian and the registered Indianyou're all colors and racesyou're the widows and orphansyou're the prisoners' uprisingyou're a howling that never ends knife-throws shotsyou're the fantastic athlete of the Dream Miles the iconoclast in the head of democracyyou're the master chain-breakeryou're the secretly shining phrase the pennant the avant garde of the Free Kitchensyou're Man And Beast when it senses deathyou're alone and you're everyoneyou're your death and you're the Great Wishyou're the map you're spreading out And you're your death